Imus be Dreaming ...

I don’t think I’ll get much of a counter-argument when I say that Don Imus is an ass-hat. Obviously, his comments about the Rutgers women’s basketball team were stupid, short-sighted, and just plain wrong. But, the uproar that he’s receiving, in my mind, is ludicrous. He apologized, and he’s been belittled. I think that is punishment enough.

So, why is it that whenever somebody says something racist and stupid, a.k.a. Michael Richards, do they have to go on the Al Sharpton show and grovel for forgiveness? Seriously, when did this clown fart become the beacon of racial sensitivity? When was the vote held for this? I never got the memo. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one.

I mean all Sharpton does is have them apologize and call themselves stupid, and THEN he doesn’t even forgive them, and instead asks the public to take a giant dump on them. C’mon, if Sharpton didn’t have these “guests” on his show, who in tarnations (there’s that word again) would give a flying rat’s ass about his radio program? I’m sick of this, I tell ya!

Again, I’m not defending Imus or anything he said. I’ve never listened to the guy before, but I’m pretty sure that’s his schtick … saying controversial things so that people notice. It’s done by most of the popular jocks, including Stern, Hannady, Franken, and people from all political parties.

You know, Sharpton has said more than his share of controversial stuff in his time. What show does he go on to kick himself in the nuts? Does he even have to, and if not, why does he get a mulligan?

Here’s just a few of Sharpton’s shenanigans from the past (thanks to http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=2411):

1987: Sharpton spreads the incendiary Tawana Brawley hoax, insisting heatedly that a 15-year-old black girl was abducted, raped, and smeared with feces by a group of white men. He singles out Steve Pagones, a young prosecutor. Pagones is wholly innocent -- the crime never occurred -- but Sharpton taunts him: "If we're lying, sue us, so we can . . . prove you did it." Pagones does sue, and eventually wins a $345,000 verdict for defamation. To this day, Sharpton refuses to recant his unspeakable slander or to apologize for his role in the odious affair.

1991: A Hasidic Jewish driver in Brooklyn's Crown Heights section accidentally kills Gavin Cato, a 7-year-old black child, and antisemitic riots erupt. Sharpton races to pour gasoline on the fire. At Gavin's funeral he rails against the "diamond merchants" -- code for Jews -- with "the blood of innocent babies" on their hands. He mobilizes hundreds of demonstrators to march through the Jewish neighborhood, chanting, "No justice, no peace." A rabbinical student, Yankel Rosenbaum, is surrounded by a mob shouting "Kill the Jews!" and stabbed to death.

1995: When the United House of Prayer, a large black landlord in Harlem, raises the rent on Freddy's Fashion Mart, Freddy's white Jewish owner is forced to raise the rent on his subtenant, a black-owned music store. A landlord-tenant dispute ensues; Sharpton uses it to incite racial hatred. "We will not stand by," he warns malignantly, "and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business." Sharpton's National Action Network sets up picket lines; customers going into Freddy's are spat on and cursed as "traitors" and "Uncle Toms." Some protesters shout, "Burn down the Jew store!" and simulate striking a match. "We're going to see that this cracker suffers," says Sharpton's colleague Morris Powell. On Dec. 8, one of the protesters bursts into Freddy's, shoots four employees point-blank, then sets the store on fire. Seven employees die in the inferno.

Way to go, Rev! You know what they say about people in glass houses …